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Magical Microbes Winner Announced!

Congratulations to Sona Dolasia for winning the Grand Prize for her entry in the Kids’ Science Challenge Magical Microbes category. Here’s her entry:

“One of major problems these days is that there is not enough fresh water in the world. Today we use desalination in some pats of the world to solve this problem, but it is super expensive and takes a long time. My idea of using a microbe called lithotrophs may not only work faster but it would also be cheaper, so every one could afford it. Lithotrophs are microbes that can eat the salts in stones and rocks. If we could modify these just like how scientists modified bactria to make ‘bacafilla’ (the new cement glue) to eat salts in the ocean instead. It may work. However, since we don’t know if they are harmful to humans we would need to test them, and if they are maybe find a way to either extract them or modify them to self destruct after their job is done. I would love to work with a scientist regarding this problem.”

Lithotrophs work at a semi-slow pace, so there would have to be many vats of water waiting to be induced with them. But my point is that how long will it take for a group of lithotrophs to eat through a piece of silt or sand?